Climbing trees and time on the beach

Jennifer Giannini (née Secombe) remembers with affection her holidays at West Cross when she stayed with her Gran and Bampi Atherton.

"Most summers in the 1950s, we could spend hours on the beach, laughing, talking and playing make believe games and not notice time passing.

"We'd sit on a tree branch to wave to the passengers on the Mumbles Train and hope to catch a glimpse of our great-uncle Cyril, in his Inspector's uniform."

My own memories include the time when I was seven or eight years old, before Grange school opened, when I had to travel to Oystermouth School every day on the train from West Cross to Oystermouth for a fare of 1d.

Sometimes, during the holidays, my friends and I would climb the trees in the "cutting" at West Cross, to wave to the upstairs passengers on the Mumbles train, which startled them somewhat!

Shove ha'penny and other games

My husband, John remembers that, "As a teenager, I and other schoolboys used to travel to Swansea Technical School on the Mumbles Train. I got on at West Cross and went as far as Rutland Street Station, on the site of the now-defunct Leisure Centre."

"We used to play shove ha'penny upstairs on the stairwell cover. I remember that outside Swansea Prison, there was the width of the road and then the railway, which was immediately outside a row of houses, whose front doors opened directly on to it.

"On summer days, there were often 'baby gates' in the open doorways to prevent the baby of the family getting out, but enabling him/her to see out.

"One thing I saw, which reminds me of the reason why the railway was constructed in the first place, were engines travelling from the Docks railway system alongside the Museum and on to the Mumbles railway.

"At that time you could also still see the lines going up from Blackpill to Clyne Valley - as the line had been a freight system originally.

"We children used to place pennies on the track to let the train run over them and flatten them.

"Another thing we used to do (which would probably be forbidden today) was to walk along the track-the sleepers being correctly spaced for our steps.

"Today, the outlines of some of these old railway sleepers are still visible in the tarmac just outside the Junction Café at Blackpill.

"My girlfriend (now my wife) had recorded some of the last few sounds of the train from her house near the line at West Cross a few days before.

"This may have given me the idea to record the occasion on cine film.

"We spent almost two days filming with my father's cine camera, on the first day, making the journey from Rutland Street, filming from within the train.

"On the final day, Carol and I recorded the last train from the trackside at West Cross and the first of the number 77 buses, which were to replace them.

"These are just some of the lovely memories, which lived on in the minds of our contributors and are recorded for posterity.

"The Mumbles train was, to re-quote Grafton Maggs, very much more than a mere form of transport, it was the Mumbles Train- a much loved part of our way of life."

Carol wishes to offer her grateful thanks for the help given to her compiling these features to: Margery Bowden, (née Jenkins), Owen Davies, Frank Dunkin, Esther Edwards (née Flowers), Jennifer Giannini (née Secombe), Joan Gleig, Bert Harris, Kitty Horsley (née Ladd), Hilary Lewis (née Dunkin), Michael Llewellyn, Grafton Maggs, Wilfred Mock, Ivor Owen, Edward Solomon, Elizabeth Isabella Spence, George Webborn and Norman Thomas, The Mumbles-Past and Present, 1978 Susan Thomas, The Mumbles Railway, an unpublished dissertation, 1975 Oystermouth Historical Association archive, Ein Newyddion, Staff Journal of South Wales Transport Co. Ltd.